


trying to kill the noise and silence

by restlesslikeme



Category: Iron Man - All Media Types, Marvel, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Incredible Hulk - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hackers, Angst, Getting Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-16
Updated: 2014-03-16
Packaged: 2018-01-15 21:44:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1320265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/restlesslikeme/pseuds/restlesslikeme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce pulls the corner of Tony’s eyelid down with his thumb, ignores the question, says “Roll your eyes towards the ceiling.”  They know better than to indulge that kind of talk in each other because once it starts there’s no end. <i>Think I had it coming? Think I deserved it? </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	trying to kill the noise and silence

**Author's Note:**

  * For [barelyjoyous](https://archiveofourown.org/users/barelyjoyous/gifts).



> content warning for anxiety, brief non sexual but non consensual touching, as well as allusions to past off-screen abuse / trauma. 
> 
> i think i've had this in my drafts since skyfall came out. it started as a completely different animal via talks w/ my braintwin barelyjoyous.
> 
> ty to valeriestahl for basically (definitely) writing one of these scenes for me.

Bruce loses his job at the hospital; Tony robs a bank.

These things are related, somehow. Probably. In some sort of karmic, everything-happens-for-a-reason way, if such things exist.

“Did you use my code for this?” Bruce asks. He’s no longer wearing his white overcoat, didn’t even bother to bring it with him. It’s hanging on a wooden peg in the staff room of NYU Langone Medical Center, on the side of the room reserved for the interns. Someone else will wear it, maybe. He’s kind of regretting it now, low in his belly. As if that jacket had meant something to him, had been some sort of token of a person he could’ve been.

There’s six million dollars sitting in Tony’s checking account with the foreign bank, though, which. Six million dollars. That can have a lot of affect on who you can be too. He stares at the figures on the screen until they start to hurt his eyes, then he takes his glasses off, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Technically,” Tony says, leaning back and looking pleased with himself, “ _Technically_ , it’s our code.”

In a long line of making bad life choices, befriending Tony Stark (allowing Tony Stark to befriend him) was the worst decision Bruce ever made. He tries to remind himself of this, tries to dig up the moral part of him that will frame this in a less appealing light. 

He’s coming up short. That side of him always seems absent around Tony. 

“Our code,” he concedes. “Did you use our code for this?” It’s a stupid question, one he already knows the answer to; it’s written in the curl of Tony’s lip and the arrogant burn in his own chest, that defiant, smirking _fuck you_ feeling that’s already settling in like it never left.

Tony’s not answering him, just laughing.

 

\--

 

“Well,” Bruce says, wiping at Tony’s face with a damp cloth. “Your nose isn’t broken at least. You fucked your eye up pretty good though. Broke a blood vessel.”

It’s a familiar scene: the light is low and cold, they’re sitting in the dingy kitchen of their apartment. Tony on his knees between Bruce’s legs, his face in Bruce’s hands.Tony grunts, then winces, tonguing at the split in his lip. 

“Think I had it coming?”

Bruce pulls the corner of Tony’s eyelid down with his thumb, ignores the question, says “Roll your eyes towards the ceiling.” They know better than to indulge that kind of talk in each other because once it starts there’s no end. _Think I had it coming? Think I deserved it?_

Bruce lets go of his face and Tony pushes himself up and pulls a cigarette off the dented wooden kitchen table in one surprisingly graceful movement, leaning himself up against the cupboard while he lights up and takes a long drag. There’s blood crusting in the short beard around his mouth and down his chin. There’s blood on Bruce’s hands too- his knuckles, mostly, because Tony can only fight his own battles when he isn’t falling over himself drunk. Because that’s another thing Bruce can’t ever quite stop once he’s started, not until he can hear something crack under his hands.

“You shouldn’t run your mouth so much,” Bruce says mildly, not with any kind of real meaning, no real threat or weight behind it. He says it to hear his own voice more than anything, to break the silence in the tiny room. 

“Says you,” Tony retorts. He keeps blowing smoke and he hasn’t stopped messing with his lip.

“Yeah says me,” Bruce answers, and grins, only looking away when he feels like Tony’s gaze is getting uncomfortable.

 

\--

 

Within the span of a month, they’ve hacked one of the most secure banks in the world, a small time intelligence agency, and have collapsed a tiny but highly guarded Oscorp research facility in Tuscan, AZ. It’s not about the money. Most of it ends up sitting untouched in Tony’s secret account (which, Bruce discovers, has been modified to have his name on it as well). Bruce makes a lot of anonymous donations; to school programs, to war relief, to kids’ charities. 

“You’re too much of an asshole to be such a goddamn bleeding heart,” Tony tells him, and he’s right, but it doesn’t stop him. Besides, he knows better than to think that Tony isn’t paying some kid’s way through college. Multiple kids even. Still, he keeps it to himself, the way he does most things. 

“Does it make you feel better?” Tony asks. His eyes are closed. He hasn’t shaved in a few days, maybe he hasn’t showered either. They haven’t left the house in a week and Bruce is having a hard time keeping track of hours. His brain is all lines of binary code, over and over and over, when he blinks he sees the blue-white shine of a computer screen reflecting off of Tony’s face. It takes him a minute to catch up.

“Breaking the law or donating to charity?” he responds finally.

Tony doesn’t give him a straight answer. Tony rarely does anymore, as if Bruce is supposed to be able to read his mind, to tack onto the end of his thoughts the way he’s able to tack onto the end of his work. Sometimes, a lot of the time, Bruce can, which makes it all the more frustrating when he’s unable. Like he’s lost in a limbo of psuedo-meaningful glances and facial twitches. He hasn’t lost his temper with Tony yet, though. Not really, not the way he’s prone to. It must be some sort of a record.

 

\--

 

So they’re rich, so they’re bored, so sometimes it feels like this is all they’re going to do for the rest of forever. So sometimes when Tony touches him it feels like he’s taking a hammer to his ribs, one by one. He’s used to it. He’ll get used to it. When he wakes up in the middle of the night with the feeling of phantom hands wrapped around his throat, at least there’s someone on the other side of his bedroom door. At least there are always more things to break and undo. 

“It’s just us, Boss,” Tony whispers, and that’s how Bruce knows his eyes are wild. “There’s no one here but you and I.” 

Tony grabs at his wrist, slides their hands together, links their fingers. It’s deliberately non-aggressive, deliberately non forceful in a way that Tony rarely lets himself be, and Bruce feels his body responding to it before his brain does. His head’s still pulsing when he leans into Tony’s shoulder, but nothing is screaming at him to stop the contact.

“It’s just you and me, Bruce.”

Tony smells like sweat and the spicy cologne that Bruce keeps in the medicine cabinet. When Bruce’s shoulders start to shake uncontrollably Tony wraps his arms around him and tucks Bruce’s head into his neck. It feels safe. 

So there’s that, too. 

 

\--

 

The thing is, that in the end they can’t hover forever. There’s nothing hidden about it- encrypted maybe. A lot of show and defiance scrambled by anonymous proxies, a shared pseudonym. A lot of taunting and frustration for anyone trying to track them. People reach out though. Word spreads fast through the cyberverse and they’re the _best_ , Tony says it all the time and it feels good and something must have lined up to make it true because suddenly everyone wants them. Blog posts and message boards and classifieds ads, all searching them out.

“We don’t need to take a job,” is what Bruce says. “We don’t need it. There’s no reason to do it. Let it lie.”

Tony sees it different though, for whatever reason. Showmanship. A need to prove something. Bruce lets him have it because he’s familiar with the feeling. If this is how it manifests for Tony, he doesn’t think it’s his place to tell him no.

A week later they’re in a chatroom with someone who needs something shut down, Bruce isn’t even sure. Tony’s got the webcam on with their faces out of frame, muted, and he’s talking (typing) a lot of big shit. The guy’s eating it up. Bruce should be feeling good about it but he’s not, it feels off, it feels like he’s out of the loop and everything is putting him on edge. 

_guess it kind of makes sense that you’re two guys with the kind of things you’ve been pulling._

Bruce briefly sees it pop up on the screen, then dismisses it. He’s been busy typing up a contract while Tony rubs shoulders.

_are you brothers?_

“What difference does it make?” he mumbles to neither of them in particular, but Tony’s laughing again. It’s off-putting: he doesn’t understand the joke. He doesn’t even realized Tony has typed anything back until he feels Tony’s hand snaking its way around his waist.

_not quite ;)_

Something sharp and cold twists in Bruce’s gut and immediately his posture stiffens. Maybe Tony doesn’t feel it. Maybe he does and he just doesn’t care. Either way, Bruce waits for a look that doesn’t come, for an aside that will open the situation up to him the way it always is, between the two of them. He waits for Tony to move his hand or acknowledge him and it doesn’t happen. It’s a nauseating moment of realization: he’s a prop in Tony’s one man show. He’s not in on the joke. 

They finish the rest of the meeting and as soon as Tony stands up, Bruce takes his laptop and retreats to his room. He can still feel the point of contact where Tony was touching him, still see the smirk on Tony’s face and the unwelcome sensation of surprise and the lack of control that comes with it, of being caught of guard by _Tony_ , of all people. The betrayal of all it cuts him through.

There’s a knock on his door later in the night, and the smell of coffee coming from the kitchen. He ignores both.

 

\--

 

Bruce wants to grow barbs from his skin. He wants to be untouchable; every time someone tries to look at him, he wants it to hurt. He feels like he’s fifteen again: out of control and angry, his bones ill fitting under his skin, his breath out of time with his heart. It shouldn’t matter this much. Rationally, he’s aware of this. 

“You’re being weird,” is what Tony says. His voice is too practiced. He’s too fucking cool, and Bruce ignores him the way he’s been doing for a week now because suddenly everything about Tony digs at him. He gets frigid because otherwise he’ll go the other way- red visioned and vicious, like an animal backed into a corner, and the only thing worse than what he’s feeling right now is the idea of hurting Tony. He’s seen what that looks like. 

“You need to loosen up, Big Guy.”

Except that Tony keeps reaching out, trying to touch him the way he normally does and Bruce flinches, backs away, pulls into himself every time. The smaller he makes himself, Tony does the opposite. It’s like he’s trying to take up all the space that Bruce is failing to fill, and he’s good at it. They’ve had equal amounts of practice in opposite survival tactics.

“Don’t do that,” Bruce snaps, the next time Tony tries to brush a hand along his back. _You used me,_ he thinks. _You don’t get to keep me out. You don’t get to put your hands anywhere near me_. 

Tony’s grin in return is steely, it’s barely a smile at all. 

Bruce breathes. He wills himself to freeze over, hoping maybe he’ll become someone who doesn’t feel like smashing Tony’s laptop into the floor.

 

\--

 

He half expects the money in his name to start disappearing once he stops working, but it doesn’t. His computer stays closed for days at a time and he notices they’re doing this dance now. Tony stomps around, he clangs dishes and talks loudly to Bruce about whatever’s on his mind, he gestures wildly while he talks and leans in a lot whenever he can. Bruce, for his part, is a ghost. He’s got no problem with unforgiving, no lack of ability with regards to closing himself off. 

“I’m going out to the bar,” Tony shouts from the kitchen. The mania’s practically radiating off him in waves, worse than it has in a long time. Bruce can feel the crackle of energy all the way from his place on the livingroom floor, legs crossed, eyes closed, trying to meditate. He doesn’t answer.

“I said I’m going out,” Tony repeats, pushing harder. “Did you hear me? Did I say that out loud or am I just going fucking insane?” There’s the crash of something falling down off the counter and Bruce flinches again, reflexively. He hopes Tony saw it. He hopes it makes him feel like shit.

“I’ll see you later Bruce, try not to Dalai Lama yourself into a coma.”

 

\--

 

It’s nearly four in the morning and Bruce hasn’t slept when there’s a noise at the door. It’s not a knock, it’s a thump, then sort of a sliding noise. Carefully, he goes towards it, bare feet moving quietly across the floor. When he gets to the door he stops, listening for a minute. It sounds like someone’s coughing on the otherside, wet and painful and he pauses before reaching for the handle.

“Look who’s still awake,” Tony chokes, flashing him a smile through a mouthful of blood before he starts hacking again, doubled over, sitting on his ass on their front step.

“Jesus Christ,” Bruce reaches for him before it can occur to him not to, hitching him up enough that he can start to move them both inside. “Can you walk?”

He gets Tony to the bathroom and lets him slump down in the corner between the bath and the toilet. Tony’s whole body is shaking. There’s blood around his mouth and dripping from a gash on his head. He’s holding his ribs over his ruined shirt. It’s not... it isn’t the first time Bruce has seen him like this. Usually though, they’re together. Usually there’s triumph glinting in Tony’s eyes. This time all there is is the same strung out look he had when he left, tempered only by the defeated curl of his lips, the embarrassment in his posture.

“What the hell were you trying to do?” Bruce doesn’t raise his voice. He stands under the crisp white light of their bathroom with his hands at his side and tries to figure out what he’s supposed to do with Tony and the blood dripping onto the tile, about how he fits into this picture when his own hands are clean, his own face is unbruised.

“Does it look like I was trying to do anything?”

He wants to run. It occurs to him suddenly and painfully; he wants to turn away and pack his bags and take off without looking back. That’s what he does. That’s what he’s always done.

“Don’t,” Tony leans his head over the tub, spits blood at the drain. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

Tony heaves himself up with one battered hand balancing him on the edge of the bath. He stands about the same height as Bruce in a normal situation, right now he’s a little shorter, hunched over, chin up. 

“Don’t fucking walk away from me, Bruce. If I did something-” He coughs again, drags the back of his hand across his mouth like he’s frustrated that he has to. Bruce’s fingertips feel hot. Tony’s standing too close to him, he can smell alcohol on his clothes mixed with iron and sweat. 

“If I did something,” Tony continues. “You have to tell me. Hell, you don’t even have to do _that_ ,” he’s laughing now, throwing his hands up in the air and turning away. “You have to fucking feel _something_ , though. Smash your hand through the mirror, tell me I’m a piece of shit, what _ever_. Stop running from every single thing, stop meditating yourself out of reality, fucking _feel something_ like a normal human being.” 

Something snaps in Bruce’s head. 

“ _Feel something?_ ” His voice sounds bizarre to his own ears, too loud and vicious, too much like-

“I don’t feel anything, is that what you think?” his hands are shaking when he grabs Tony’s arm to spin him around. “That’s all I _do_ , Tony.” His head hurts. He wants to hit something, maybe the man standing in front of him, maybe himself. Maybe something else altogether. 

“This is the only way for me to know who I _am_ , it’s the only way I can keep myself sane. Not all of us had the fucking luxury to use excess as a coping mechanism, alright? I’m not like you.”

He’s acting purely on instinct, he’s not thinking when shoves Tony against the wall, not thinking when he grabs a handful of his shirt to keep him there. Tony’s watching him now, though, keyed into his every action, eyes sharp and alert. 

“You don’t get to leave me out,” Bruce continues, breathing hard. “You don’t get to use me to make a point, to touch me like that just to-”

“Is that what this is about?” Tony licks his lips. “Is that what all this is for?”

Before Bruce can answer Tony surges forward from the wall and kisses him. 

Tony tastes like blood and, surprisingly, not like alcohol. When Bruce responds, Tony grabs at the collar of his shirt and pulls to keep him there. Bruce kisses more desperately than he’d like to, with more need than he’s completely comfortable showing, but when Tony brings his other arm up to wrap around his neck, it doesn’t seem to matter as much.

“Don’t shut me out,” Tony says into his mouth; he doesn’t sound angry anymore. “I hate that.”

It feels like hours have passed when they finally break apart. Bruce pushes his face into Tony’s neck, runs his hands down his torso and his hips, trying to take in as much of him as possible and breathes, focuses on keeping himself here, in this moment. Tony’s laughing, quietly, his body leaned right into Bruce’s.

“Hey Doc?” he says. “Sorry to ruin the moment, but I think a couple of my ribs might be busted.”

 

\--

 

It’s almost a week before it comes up again. Bruce stops locking himself up, they get back online. When Tony looks at him now it still burns, but it’s not with anger. It’s something different, something that sits lower in his gut. They’ve been keeping their distance but it feels safer than it did.

“If you want,” Tony says, then hesitates, choosing his words. Bruce is at the stove making tea. Tony’s dressed but just out of the shower, his hair’s wet and dripping on the collar of his shirt. 

“If you want, I won’t touch you anymore, unless you.” he stops again. Bruce waits. “Unless you want me to.”

“Oh.” Bruce raises an eyebrow. Tony clears his throat and averts his eyes. Bruce waits again.

“Do you want some tea?”

Tony does a double-take. “Uh, no. Sure.”

“Is that a yes or a no?” Bruce asks. The tea kettle is beginning to steam.

“Yeah, it’s a yeah.” Tony pauses, hovering in the kitchen doorway. Bruce moves to the cupboards and pulls out two mugs. He sets them down on the counter next to the stove and busies his hands with the tea bags, pouring the hot water from the kettle into each muh.

“It’s chai,” he says, and Tony steps over and takes his mug with a nod. Bruce hadn’t realized he had picked it out. He smiles to himself as Tony settles at the table, looking at his drink.

Bruce sits across from him and lets his tea steep for a minute. The silence isn’t exactly comfortable but at least it’s not like it was. He’s grateful for that, no matter what Tony says next.

Tony sips and hisses. “Hot,” he says and Bruce chuckles. “Too hot.”

“Yeah,” Bruce murmurs. And he waits. They both just - wait.

“What do you think?” Tony asks.

“About what?” Bruce says, taking a gulp of his tea. It’s hot enough to leave a stinging in his throat but at the same time, it’s good.

“Well,” Tony says, maybe even cringes a little bit before he shrugs. “You might still be angry at me.”

“Is that...your biggest problem.” Bruce doesn’t exactly mean to sound annoyed. He doesn’t _mean_ to roll his eyes, but it happens anyway. Natural response to Tony, at this point.

“Uh. My ribs are sore,” Tony says. He then licks his lips and shakes his head. “Everything is sore.”

“Don’t say anything about your heart,” Bruce warns, but laughs as he sips his tea. “It should be cooling down.”

“Yeah,” Tony says, and he sips his tea as well. Tony wonders if he didn’t agree to tea just so he could sit with Bruce and procrastinate whatever he actually wants to say. “I do some stupid shit.”

“Really,” Bruce says, voice dry. He shakes his head and smiles as Tony chuckles. 

“You’re more good natured,” Tony says, “I’m glad.”

Bruce doesn’t answer, letting them lapse into silence again until Tony says, “I’m sorry for touching you.”

“It wasn’t the just touching, exactly.” Bruce presses his lips into a tight line. “It was everything.”

“I wasn’t sure you’d actually ever tell me what was bothering you.”

Bruce scowls. “ _You’re_ bothering me,” he says under his breath. Tony just shrugs again, though his posture is lighter than it has been in weeks.

They lapse into quiet. “Why did you get into a bar fight?” Bruce says.

Tony sighs, barely audible, and drinks from his tea. There’s a long pause before he says anything else, and it’s that expert act of choosing his words with as much care as he can manage. Bruce watches him, watches Tony’s chest rise as he straightens his shoulders, and watches him wince consequently.

Finally, Tony says, “I was pissed off.”

“Well.” Bruce shakes his head. “That much was obvious. Before you got into a bar fight.”

Tony huffs and stands up, leaving the mug on the table and beginning to pace. Bruce watches as he crosses his arms, curious about the newfound nervous energy. 

“This...isn’t about me. Not really.”

Bruce stares. “Don’t deflect.”

Tony scoffs. “Okay, I’ll admit - I pushed you around a little. Took a few...liberties, to make things more interesting.”

“That’s what you call it? Liberties?”

Tony shrugs. “Not really the point. What I’m saying - what’s happening - it’s -”

Bruce stands up and Tony goes quiet.

“It’s about us. As…Incredibly nauseating as that sounds.”

Tony frowns. “That’s not fair.”

Bruce shakes his head. “We’re a team. We were a team.”

“That’s also not fair,” Tony says, though more softly this time. He looks away.

Bruce doesn’t know if he wants to be standing or sitting, but standing makes the most sense because it’s what’s Tony’s doing, and that just kind of pisses him off because he doesn’t have to follow every single one of Tony’s directions, his actions, his choices. That’s never what this was, isn’t what it _should_ be and Bruce thinks they both know better.

Except, well, maybe they don’t.

Tony doesn’t exactly “invade” his personal space, not in the way that Bruce had gotten used to, but he hovers on the edges and gets close enough that Bruce senses everything before he sees it and feels it physically. It’s Tony close, with his healing bruises and tired eyes, and Bruce - he’s tired, too. 

Tony says, “We’re a team,” and Bruce nods. There’s inches between them, a gap that Bruce knows Tony is just waiting for him to close. It’s the natural progression - how things _should_ be in a world where things work out like stories, where everything runs clockwork the way- for a while - it seemed like the two of them did. Bruce doesn’t close the gap. Not yet. “Maybe I just knew it before you did.”

Bruce raises an eyebrow. “Knew what?” he asks, and he’s more curious than he lets on.

Tony smiles and his newly split lip cracks unpleasantly. “That one of us would cave. Eventually. It was a matter of time, thing.”

Bruce lets himself consider that, Tony still hovering inches away and waiting.

“Fine,” Tony says. “You were ignoring me, and I wanted attention.” He rolls his eyes and Bruce furrows his eyebrows. “Don’t look so _shocked_ , Banner. Childishness wouldn’t be the worst thing you’ve accused me of.”

“To you it might be,” Bruce says, but he smiles and Tony smiles back. There’s a moment again, a hesitation, and Bruce takes the step forward so they’re crowded together. Tony reacts to it like it’s natural and not unexpected and cups Bruce’s face in his hands, giving Bruce a stern look. It’s easily the closest they’ve been since they kissed but there’s no blood involved tonight, nothing violent or desperate. This time when Bruce’s hands find Tony’s hips, there’s no push. Instead Tony matches his pace and- quietly, carefully - they start to sync back up.

“We’re okay?” Tony says quietly. He’s running his thumb along the line of Bruce’s jaw, watching him still like he’s not sure he’ll get this close again. It’s sweet. More than that, though, it’s vulnerable. And Bruce is sharp enough to know that that part is important.

Bruce bumps their noses together, just briefly, and Tony snorts in response, probably rolling his eyes. “We’ll get there.” he answers, and he believes it.

 

\--

 

They decide to retire their career of crime. Bruce buys a house.

These things aren't related explicitly, but it feels like they are. Bruce signs the paperwork with Tony next to him. His hands only shake a little bit, and it feels like a new kind of victory.

Bruce wakes up in a bed that smells like salt and sand, with sweat still (already?) sticking to his shoulder blades. He wakes up in a house with his name on the title and Tony's clothes strewn across the sandalwood floors in a country he had always wanted to see but had never gotten to visit until two weeks ago.

"Think we should go home soon, Doc?" Tony stretches languorously, shamelessly, before rolling out of bed and heading for the window. Everything is open-concept, one big space with windows overlooking the ocean- the opposite of the place they share in New York with Tony’s name on the title. Not that he’d want to leave that place, but. A change of scenery was nice. Is nice.

"Maybe," Bruce answers, pushing himself up to sit on the bed while he watches Tony watch nothing. "Maybe soon."

“No rush. Not like we have anywhere else to be,” Tony says, turning and leaning back into the sun. Bruce smiles. 

“Let’s just take it a day at a time.”

And here, after everything and with more still to come, a day at a time seems like a good place to start.


End file.
